We are 1 week away from the start of our season! We have lots of reminders and announcements below. If you have any questions as we approach the first day of practice, feel free to email us at [email protected].

It's not too late to sign up for the swim team. If you or your friends have not registered, you can do so online at www.gmstswim.org anytime. 

Pancake Breakfast and First Day:

We will kick off our first day of practice on Monday, May 29th with our annual Pancake Breakfast! This is a fun way to kick off the summer and meet everyone. We will have fresh pancakes, breakfast casseroles, and other foods that are donated by parents, and we will invite everyone to eat with us for a recommended $5 donation. It is a fundraiser for the team (we are a nonprofit), as well as a great opportunity to mingle and get acquainted. Please sign up for a food contribution at: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090d4fa8a922a6fa7-gmst1​

Items (other than casseroles) can be brought to the pool starting Friday, May 26th. 

Preseason Swim:

We have 1 week left of preseason swimming. It's not too late to join the last 2 practices! Tuesday and Thursday from 5:00-6:00 at National Fitness. $25 to join the last 2 sessons. 

Stroke & Turn Official Training
For each swim meet, we require a number of stroke and turn officials to run each meet. These individuals are knowledgeable about stroke technique and watch the swimmers to ensure that they are doing each stroke correctly and are not breaking any rules. This is one of the few certified volunteer positions we have. 

If you or someone in your family is interested in becoming a stroke & turn official, GKAISA offers several clinics each year. Officials need no other qualifications or pre-requisites, outside of just being a fan of swimming and being interested and willing to learn. The clinic will teach each person what to look for and what the job entails. We will be hosting a clinic at Green Meadow on Tuesday, May 30th at 6:00. Other clinics in the Knoxville area are also available- dates and times can be found at http://gkaisa.swim-league.us/.

Meet Sign-ups are Open!
We will be using the same software as the team registration to do meet sign-ups and volunteer sign-ups online. You can now sign your swimmers up for meets online, RSVP for other summer activities, and pick your volunteer positions for each of the meets on our website. 

Go to www.gmstswim.org. In the upper right hand corner, you will see "Sign-In". If you enter the email address you used to sign-up your swimmer, your initial password is "swimming" (all lowercase). Once you sign-in, you can click the upper right hand "Actions" tab to change your password to whatever you want. 

After you sign-in to your account, you will then be able to change details for your swimmer such as email addresses, phone numbers, etc, by clicking on "Actions" and then "Parent Page". On this page you can RSVP for the various events and sign-up to volunteer at a meet. When you are logged in, you can also see the team roster. 

You can also RSVP or volunteer for meets by clicking on "Swim Meets" while you are logged in and clicking on the links to sign-up from there. 

Remember: Meet registration will be taken down at a stated time a few days prior to the meet.  If your child swims in a meet, you will need to volunteer to work at least 1 shift during that meet. If you need help understanding what the various positions are, there are plenty that require no knowledge or skills and are easy to do! 

Summer Pool Memberships
The pool will open for the summer on Friday, May 26th. Summer social memberships (pool, tennis and clubhouse for your family!) and other memberships to the club are available. Summers at the pool are always lots of fun! Remember, if you are not a member of the club, you cannot stay and swim after practice is over. If you have any suggestions for the pool this summer or have questions on memberships, feel free to email [email protected]. 

Practice Times:
As a reminder, Swim Practice will begin on Monday morning, May 29th. We will not have night practice on Monday due to Memorial Day. Regular practice will resume on Tuesday, May 30. 

Regular Practice Times:
Mornings, Monday through Friday- 
9:00-10:30 for 11 and over
10:30-11:45 for 10 and under

Evenings, Monday through Thursday- 
11 and over from 5:00-6:00
10 and under from 6:00-7:00

Kroger Rewards:

Did you know that you can earn money for GMST just by using your Kroger Card when grocery shopping? Link your Kroger Card to GMST, and Kroger will automatically donate money to GMST each time you shop! To sign up, go to www.krogercommunityrewards.com. If you already have a Kroger online account, login and link your Kroger card to GMST. If you don't have an account, use your Kroger card and email address to create an online account. 

We are listed as "Green Meadow Swim Team" and organization number 17468. *You must re-enroll your Kroger card each year, so even if you signed up last year, please sign up again!

Kickboards, Fins, and Old Team Suits:

Each summer, the team has kickboards and fins for swimmers to use during swim practice. If you have old equipment that your child can no longer use (such as fins they have outgrown), please consider donating those to the team. We especially need smaller size fins, as fins are essential to teaching young children the correct kick and to gain leg strength. Since we are a nonprofit, your donations are tax deductible and are a great help to our team to help keep our budget low! 

Also, if you have a gently used team suit (or any suits) that your child has outgrown and you would like to donate to another family, feel free to bring those by the pool office. We know those suits are expensive and we love helping out other families when we can! 

Looking forward to the season!!